Garmin's eight-rider team set out on the 21.7km stage midway through the day and eclipsed all earlier times by nearly a minute.

The nearest challengers to their time of 22:35 were Rabobank, who were 32 seconds off the pace.

RadioShack-Nissan took third place, 37 seconds back with Continental squad Bissell Pro Cycling in fourth, a further 13 seconds back.

"I don't usually like to race too much in a sprint like that, but you have to get up there and fight for it every once in a while," Vande Velde said.

"I didn't come here with great ambitions last year, and I got a top five," he added.

"And I didn't come with great ambitions for this year, either, because you never know how your body is going to react to altitude. I'm not going to lie, I suffered like a dog yesterday, and I plan to suffer more this week."

Overnight leader Rory Sutherland of UnitedHealthcare, who dropped to 10th overall, said: "A couple of our guys have never done a team time trial. So to get fifth or sixth, wherever we were in that time, we should be pretty proud on how we rode, definitely."

Thursday sees the peloton travel 137.6km from Ogden to Salt Lake City, a route that includes 2,174m of climbing, including one Cat. 3 climb and two Cat. 2 ascents.